Note 51 — Chapter III

There is no reason to doubt that these were Gipsies. They were evidently a roving band, from some of the continental hordes, that had passed over into Scotland, to “prospect” and plunder. They would, very naturally, be called Saracens by the natives of Scotland, to whom any black people, at that time, would appear as Saracens. We may, therefore, assume that the Gipsies have been fully four hundred years in Scotland. I may mention, however, that Mediterranean corsairs occasionally landed and plundered on the British coast, to as late a period as the reign of Charles I.—Ed.

[52] Almost all the Scottish Gipsies assert that their ancestors came by way of Ireland into Scotland.

[This is extremely likely. On the publication of the edict of Ferdinand of Spain, in 1492, some of the Spanish Gipsies would likely pass over to the south of Ireland, and thence find their way into Scotland, before 1506. Anthonius Gawino, above referred to, would almost seem to be a Spanish name. We may, therefore, very safely assume that the Gipsies of Scotland are of Spanish Gipsy descent.—Ed.]

[53] Crawford’s Peerage, page 238.

[54] Glendook’s Scots’ acts of parliament.

[55] Mr. Hoyland makes some very judicious remarks upon the capacity of the Gipsies, when they first appeared in Europe. He says: “The first of this people who came into Europe must have been persons of discernment and discrimination, to have adapted their deceptions so exactly to the genius and habits of the different people they visited, as to ensure success in all countries. The stratagem to which they had recourse, on entering France, evinces consummate artifice of plan, and not a little adroitness and dexterity in the execution. The specious appearance of submission to Papal authority, in the penance of wandering seven years, without lying in a bed, contained three distinct objects. They could not have devised an expedient more likely to recommend them to the favour of the ecclesiastics, or better concerted for taking advantage of the superstitious credulity of the people, and, at the same time, for securing to themselves the gratification of their own nomadic propensities. So complete was the deception they practised, that we find they wandered up and down France, under the eye of the magistracy, not for seven years only, but for more than a hundred years, without molestation.”

Mr. Hoyland’s remarks cover only half of the question, for, being “pilgrims,” their chiefs must also assume very high titles, to give them consideration with the rulers of Europe—such as dukes, earls, lords, counts and knights. To carry out the character of pilgrims, the body would go very poorly clad; it would only be the chiefs who would be flashily accoutred. It is, therefore, by no means wonderful that the Gipsies should have succeeded so well, and so long, in obtaining an entrance, and a toleration, in every country of Europe.—Ed.

[56] Illustrissime, &c.—Anthonius Gawino, ex Parva Egypto comes, et cætera ejus comitatus, gens afflicta et miseranda, dum Christianam orbem peregrinationes studio. Apostolicæ sedis, (ut refert) jussu, suorum more peregrinans, fines nostri regni dudum advenerat, atque in sortis suæ, et miseriarum hujus populi, refugium, nos pro humanitate imploraverat ut nostros limites sibi impune adire, res cunctas, et quam habet societatem libere circumagere liceret. Impetrat facile quæ postulat miserorum hominum dura fortuna. Ita aliquot menses bene et catholice, (sic accepimus,) hic versatus, ad te, Rex et avuncule, in Daciam transitum paret. Sed oceanum transmissurus nostras literas exoravit; quibus celsitudinem tuam horum certiorum redderemus, simul et calamitatem ejus gentis Regiæ tuæ munificentiæ commendaremus. Ceterum errabundæ Egypti fata, moresque, et genus, eo tibe quam nobis credimus notiora, quo Egyptus tuo regno vicinior, et major hujusmodi hominum frequentia tuo diversatur imperio. Illustrissime, &c.

[57] I have taken the liberty of translating the various extracts from the Scottish acts of parliament, quoted in this chapter, as the original language is not very intelligible to English or even Scottish readers. For doing this, I may be denounced as a Vandal by the ultra Scotch, for so treating such “rich old Doric,” as the language of the period may be termed.—Ed.

[58] Ex. Registro Secreti Sigilli, Vol. XIV, fol. 59. Blackwood. Appendix to McLaurin’s Criminal Trials.

This document may well be termed the most curious and important record of the early history of the Gipsy race in Europe; and it is well worthy of consideration. The meaning of it is simply this: John Faw had evidently been importuned by the Scottish Court, (at which he appears to have been a man of no small consequence,) to bring his so-called “pilgrimage,” which he had undertaken “by command of the Pope,” to an end, so far, at least, as remaining in Scotland was concerned. Being pressed upon the point, he evidently, as a last resource, formed a plan with Sebastiane Lalow, and the other “rebels,” to leave him, and carry off, (as he said,) his property. To give the action an air of importance, and make it appear as a real rebellion, they brought the question into court. Then, John could turn round, and reply to the king: “May it please your majesty! I can’t return to my own country. My company and folk have conspired, rebelled, robbed, and left me. I can’t lay my hands upon them; I don’t even know where to find them. I must take them home with me, or a testimony of them that are dead, under the great peril of losing my heritage, at the hands of my lord, the Duke of Egypt. However, if your majesty will help me to catch them, I will not be long in taking leave of your kingdom, with all my company. In the meantime, your majesty will be pleased to issue your commands to all the shipowners and mariners in the kingdom, to be ready, when I gather together my folk(!) to further our passage to Egypt, for which I will pay them handsomely.” The whole business may be termed a piece of “thimble-rigging,” to prolong their stay—that is, enable them to remain permanently—in the country. Our author, I think, is quite in error in supposing this to have been a real quarrel among the Gipsies. If it had been a real quarrel, the Gipsies would soon have settled the question among themselves, by their own laws; it would have been the last thing, under all the circumstances of the case, they would have thought of, to have brought it before the Scottish court. The Gipsies, according to Grellmann, assigned the following reason for prolonging their stay in Europe: “They endeavoured to prolong the term (of their pilgrimage) by asserting that their return home was prevented by soldiers, stationed to intercept them; and by wishing to have it believed that new parties of pilgrims were to leave their country every year, otherwise their land would be rendered totally barren.”

The quarrel between the Faas and the Baillies, for the Gipsy crown, in after times, did not, in all probability, arise from this business, but most likely, as the English Gipsies believe, from some marriage between these families. The Scottish Gipsies, like the two Roses, have had, and for aught I know to the contrary, may have yet, two rival kings—Faa and Baillie, with their partisans—although the Faas, from the prominent position which they have always occupied in Scottish history, have been the only kings known to the Scottish public generally.

In perusing this work, the reader will be pleased to take the above mentioned document as the starting point of the history of the Gipsies in Scotland; and consider the Gipsies of that time as the progenitors of all those at present in Scotland, including the great encrease of the body, by the mixture of the white blood that has been brought within their community. He will also be pleased to divest himself of the childish prejudices, acquired in the nursery and in general literature, against the name of Gipsy; and consider that there are people in Scotland, occupying some of the highest positions in life, who are Gipsies; not indeed Gipsies in point of purity of blood, but people who have Gipsy blood in their veins, and who hold themselves to be Gipsies, in the manner which I have, to a certain extent, explained in the Preface, and will more fully illustrate in my Disquisition on the Gipsies.—Ed.

[59] The Gipsies assert that, on this occasion, the king attempted to take liberties with one of their women: and that one of the male Gipsies “came crack over his head with a bottle.”—Ed.

[60] Small’s Roman Antiquities of Fife, pages 285 and 286. Small also records a song composed on James V dubbing a Tinker a knight.

[61] It would seem that John Faw had become frightened at the mishap of one of his folk “coming crack over the king’s head with a bottle,” and that, to pacify his majesty, he had at once gone before him, and informed him that he had prevailed on his “rebellious subjects” to pass home, and have the matter in dispute decided by the Duke of Egypt. This would, so far, satisfy the king; but to make sure of getting rid of his troublesome visitors, he issued his commands to the various authorities to see that they really did leave the country.—Ed.

[62] It would appear, from the mention that is made here of the authorities of so many towns and counties, “where it happens the said Egyptians to resort,” that the race was scattered over all Scotland at this time, and that it must have been numerous.—Ed.

[63] M. S. Act. Dom. Con. vol 15, fol. 155.—Blackwood’s Magazine.

[64] It is perfectly evident that the severe decree of James V against the Gipsies arose from the personal insult alluded to, owing to the circumstance of its falling to the ground after his death, and the Gipsies recovering their position with his successor. Apart from what the Gipsies themselves say on this subject, the ordinary tradition may be assumed to be well founded. If the Gipsies were spoken to on the subject of the insult offered to the king, they would naturally reply, that they did not know, from his having been dressed like a beggar, that it was the king; an excuse which the court, knowing his majesty’s vagabond habits, would probably receive. But it is very likely that John Faw would declare that the guilty parties were those rebels whom he was desirous to catch, and take home with him to Egypt! This Gipsy king seems to have been a master of diplomacy.—Ed.

[65] The Gipsy chiefs were partial to the title of Captain; arising, I suppose, from their being leaders of large bands of young men employed in theft and robbery. [In Spain, such Gipsy chiefs, according to Mr. Borrow, assumed the name of Counts.—Ed.]

[66] Rajah—The Scottish Gipsy word for a chief, governor, or prince.

[67] The author, (Mr. Finlay,) who claims a Sir John Faw, of Dunbar, to have been the person who carried off the Countess of Cassilis, gives no authority, as a writer in Blackwood says, in support of his assertion. Nor does he account for a person of that name being any other than a Gipsy. Indeed, this is but an instance of the ignorance and prejudice of people generally in regard to the Gipsies. The tradition of the hero being a Gipsy, I have met with among the English Gipsies, who even gave me the name of the lady. John Faw, in all probability the king of the Gipsies, who carried off the countess, might reasonably be assumed to have been, in point of education, on a par with her, who, in that respect, would not, in all probability, rise above the most humble Scotch cow-milker at the present day, whatever her personal bearing might have been.—Ed.

[68] During these seventy-three years of peace, the Gipsies in Scotland must have multiplied prodigiously, and, in all probability, drawn much of the native blood into their body. Not being, at that time, a proscribed race, but, on the contrary, honoured by leagues and covenants with the king himself, the ignorant public generally would have few of those objections to intermarry with them, which they have had in subsequent times. The thieving habits of the Gipsies would prove no bar to such connections, as the Scottish people were accustomed to thieving of all kinds.—Ed.

[69] In this act of parliament are denounced, along with the Gipsies, “all minstrels, songsters, and tale-tellers, not avowed by special licence of some of the lords of parliament or great barons, or by the high burghs and cities, for their common minstrels.” “All vagabond scholars(!) of the universities of St Andrews, Glasgow, and Aberdeen, not licenced by the rector and dean of faculty to ask alms.” It would seem, from this last extract, that the Scottish Universities granted diplomas to their students to beg! The Gipsies were associated or classed with good company at this time. But beggar students, or student-beggars, were common in other parts of Europe during that age.—Ed.

[70] Glendook’s Scots Acts, James VI, 6th Par. cap. 74—20th Oct. 1579.

[71] By the above, and subsequent statutes, in the reign of James VI, “Coal and salt-masters might apprehend, and put to labour, all vagabonds and sturdy beggars.” The truth is, these kidnapped individuals and their children were made slaves of to these masters. The colliers were emancipated only within these fifty years. It has been stated to me that some of the colliers in the Lothians are of Gipsy extraction. [Our author might have said Gipsies; for being “of Gipsy extraction,” and “Gipsies,” are expressions quite synonymous, notwithstanding the application by the public of the latter term to the more original kind of Gipsies only.—Ed.]

[72] If Fletcher of Saltoun be correct, when he states that, in his time, which was about the end of the 17th century, there were two hundred thousand people, (about one-fifth of the whole population,) begging from door to door in Scotland, it would be a task of no little difficulty, for those in power, to put in force the laws against the Gipsies, and vagabonds generally. The editor of Dr. Pennicuick’s history of Tweed-dale, thinks Fletcher’s is an over-charged picture. Some are of opinion that, when he made his statement, he included the greater part of the inhabitants of the Scottish Border, and also those in the north of Scotland; for, he said, the Highlands “was an inexhaustible source of beggars,” and wished these banditti transplanted to the low country, and to people the Highlands from hence.

[73] The records in which this order is contained are lost.

[74] Glendook’s Scots Act.

[75] Ib.

[76] The nature of this crime in Scotch law is fully explained in the following extract from the original, which also appears curious in other respects. The pardon is granted “pro receptione, supportatione, et detentione supra terra suas de Belmadie, et infra eius habitationis domium, aliaq. edificia eiusdem, Joannis Fall, Ethiopis, lie Egiptian, eiusq. uxoris, puerorum, servorum et associatorum; Necnon pro ministrando ipsis cibum, potum, pecunias, hospicium, aliaq. necessaria, quocunq. tempore vel occasione preterita, contra acta nostri Parliamenti vel secreti concilii, vel contra quecunq. leges, alia acta, aut constitutiones huius nostri regni Scotiæ in contrarium facta.” Regist. secreti sigilli vol. lxxxiii, fol. 291, Blackwood’s Magazine.—Ed.

[77] The same state of things existed in Spain. Charles II. passed a law on the 12th June, 1695, the 16th article of which, as given by Mr. Borrow, enacts: “And because we understand that the continuance of those who are called Gitanos has depended on the favour, protection, and assistance which they have experienced from persons of different stations, we do ordain that whosoever against whom shall be proved the fact of having, since the day of the publication hereof, favoured, received, or assisted the said Gitanos, in any manner whatever, whether within their houses or without, provided he is a noble, shall be subjected to the fine of six thousand ducats, . . . . and if a plebeian, to a punishment of ten years in the galleys.” Such an enactment would surely prove that the Gipsies in Spain were greatly favoured by the Spanish people generally, even two centuries after they entered the country.

The causes to which may be attributed this toleration, even encouragement, of the Gipsies, are various. Among these may be mentioned a fear of consequences to person and property, tinkering, trafficking and amusement, and corruption on the part of those in power. But in the character of the Gipsies itself may be found a general cause for their escaping the effects of the laws passed against them, viz., wheedling. The term Gitano has been variously modified in the Spanish language, thus:

Gitano. Gipsy, flatterer; Gitanillo, a little Gipsy; Gitanismo, the Gipsy tribe; Gitanesco, Gipsy-like; Gitanear, to flatter, entice; Gitaneria, wheedling, flattery; Gitanamento, in a sly, winning manner; Gitanada, blandishment, wheedling, flattery.—Ed.

[78] There were 17 clans on the Borders, and 34 clans in the Highlands, who appear to have had chiefs and captains over them. There were 22 baronial proprietors connected with the Borders, and 106 connected with the Highlands, named in a roll, who were likewise ordered to find pledges.—Glendook’s Scots Acts.

[79] It sometimes happened, when an internal quarrel took place in a clan, portions of the tribe left their chief, and united themselves to another, whose name they assumed and dropped their original one.

[80] The reader will see that the Gipsies, at this time, were not greater “vagabonds” than great numbers of native Scotch, if as great. But, being strangers in the country, sojourners according to their own account, the king would naturally enough banish them, as they seem always to have been saying that they were about leaving for “their own country.” Their living in tents, a mode of life so different from that of the natives, would, of itself, make them obnoxious to the king personally.—Ed.

[81] The English Gipsies say that native names were assumed by their race in consequence of the proscription to which it was subjected. German Gipsies, on arrival in America, change, at least modify, their names. There are many of them who go under the names of Smith, Miller, and Waggoner. Jews frequently bear names common to the natives of the countries in which they are to be found, and sometimes, at the present day, assume Christian ones. I knew two German Jews, of the name of Cohen, who settled in Scotland. One of them, who was a priest, retained the original name; but the other, who was a watchmaker, assumed the name of Cowan, which, singularly enough, the priest said, was a corruption of Cohen.—Ed.

[82] It is stated by Paget, in his Travels in Hungary, that the Gipsies in that country have a profound regard for aristocracy; and that they invariably follow that class in the matter of religious opinions. Grellmann says as much in regard to the Gipsy’s desire of getting hold of a distinguished old coat to put on his person.—Ed.

[83] Blackwood’s Magazine.

[84] This, and part of the preceding paragraph, will be quoted again, under the chapter of Tweed-dale and Clydesdale Gipsies.

[85] From the time of arrival of the Gipsies in the country, in 1506, till 1611, the date of the first trials of the tribe, as given by Baron Hume, a period of 105 years had elapsed; during which time there had doubtless been five generations of Gipsies added to the population, as Scottish subjects; to put whom to death, on the mere ground of being Egyptians, was contrary to every principle of natural justice. The cruelty exercised upon them was quite in keeping with that of reducing to slavery the individuals, and their descendants, who constituted the colliers, coal-bearers, and salters referred to in the following interesting note, to be found in “My Schools and Schoolmasters,” of Hugh Miller.

“The act for manumitting our Scotch colliers was passed in the year 1775, forty-nine years prior to the date of my acquaintance with the class of Niddry. But though it was only such colliers of the village as were in their fiftieth year when I knew them, (with, of course, all the older ones,) who had been born slaves, even its men of thirty had actually, though not nominally, come into the world in a state of bondage, in consequence of certain penalties attached to the emancipation act, of which the poor ignorant workers under ground were both too improvident and too little ingenious to keep clear. They were set free, however, by a second act passed in 1799. The language of both these acts, regarded as British ones of the latter half of the last century, and as bearing reference to British subjects living within the limits of the island, strikes with startling effect. ‘Whereas,’ says the preamble of the older act—that of 1775—‘by the statute law of Scotland, as explained by the judges of the courts of law there, many colliers, and coal-bearers, and salters, are in a state of slavery or bondage, bound to the collieries or salt works, where they work for life, transferable with the collieries or salt works; and whereas, the emancipation,’ &c., &c. A passage in the preamble of the act of 1799 is scarcely less striking: it declares that, notwithstanding the former act, ‘many colliers and coal-bearers still continue in a state of bondage’ in Scotland. The history of our Scotch colliers would be found a curious and instructive one. Their slavery seems not to have been derived from the ancient time of general serfship, but to have originated in comparatively modern acts of the Scottish Parliament, and in decisions of the Court of Session—in acts of Parliament in which the poor ignorant subterranean men of the country were, of course, wholly unrepresented, and in decisions of a court in which no agent of theirs ever made appearance in their behalf.”

What is here said of a history of Scotch colliers being “curious and instructive,” is applicable in an infinitely greater degree to that of the Gipsies.—Ed.